Forum rules
This is an area for forum games. Please note that to support mafia games players cannot edit their own posts in this forum. Off Topic threads will be relocated or deleted. Issues taking place in forum games should be dealt with by respective game GMs and escalated to the moderators only if absolutely necessary.

I am adding another rule that should be standard for all GMs moving forward:

12.) Any issues, concerns, or complaints should be directed toward the GMs only. For concerns that require escalation beyond the GMs, contact the moderators.

A few people have emailed zultar, kestas, or in one instance even me personally regarding mafia. There will never be a need to take that approach. Going forward, violation of this rule will result in mafia bans or forum bans.

Dear Bo_Spx: I have apparenlty been accused of this, by you, since you just sent me a PM. I dispute the accusation as I have not contacted Kestas or Zultar for months. The one time, over a year ago, when I did so, for the record, Zultar made a number of false accusations against me which were totally unfounded. Kestas was fine, but to find myself being accused of a lot of nonsense by Zultar was genuinely hurtful.

Anyway, that was months ago and I have not attempted to contact either of them for months. Strange you would PM me about this now.

I am adding another rule that should be standard for all GMs moving forward:

12.) Any issues, concerns, or complaints should be directed toward the GMs only. For concerns that require escalation beyond the GMs, contact the moderators.

A few people have emailed zultar, kestas, or in one instance even me personally regarding mafia. There will never be a need to take that approach. Going forward, violation of this rule will result in mafia bans or forum bans.

Dear Bo_Spx: I have apparenlty been accused of this, by you, since you just sent me a PM. I dispute the accusation as I have not contacted Kestas or Zultar for months. The one time, over a year ago, when I did so, for the record, Zultar made a number of false accusations against me which were totally unfounded. Kestas was fine, but to find myself being accused of a lot of nonsense by Zultar was genuinely hurtful.

Anyway, that was months ago and I have not attempted to contact either of them for months. Strange you would PM me about this now.

I think this was at least partially directed at me. If the situation got to the point that I felt I needed to do this again I would do it again...as some issues are just too important to me. If my issue got ignored and instead I got banned, I probably wouldn't be coming back anyway.

The no +1 rule is mostly carryover from when +1s were Anon and it was almost impossible to tell when precisely they were given. With the new forum that issue has gone away.
I was unaware timestamps were a thing for +1s else I would have been arguing they should be legal in all games. I thought it would be too difficult to tell if a player had +1d a post while they were still alive rather than once they had died and seen the god thread, which I'd why they were still banned.

+1s are still not secure even with timestamps as you could +1, leave it there for five minutes and remove it.

This is a good point.

wait, if this is the case i feel like +1 should be banned

for example, mafia team can agree that, at 4:00 PM EST, I will +1 the person that I scanned if he is cop

or something along those lines.

if they do that that's out of boundaries of the game if they can un +1 and delete the record?

Dear Bo_Spx: I have apparenlty been accused of this, by you, since you just sent me a PM. I dispute the accusation as I have not contacted Kestas or Zultar for months. The one time, over a year ago, when I did so, for the record, Zultar made a number of false accusations against me which were totally unfounded. Kestas was fine, but to find myself being accused of a lot of nonsense by Zultar was genuinely hurtful.

It sounds like you will have no issue adhering to this rule then. What is your purpose, other than to publicly complain about something I was gracious enough to send you and the others who have contacted the owners in the past? I am just trying to make sure that it doesn't get overlooked. I'm not making some egregious, world-altering accusation.

+1s are still not secure even with timestamps as you could +1, leave it there for five minutes and remove it.

This is a good point.

wait, if this is the case i feel like +1 should be banned

for example, mafia team can agree that, at 4:00 PM EST, I will +1 the person that I scanned if he is cop

or something along those lines.

if they do that that's out of boundaries of the game if they can un +1 and delete the record?

That's exactly why it's a good point. Unless we have a way of changing that (and I do not think that altering +1s is a worthwhile use of our development resources, personally), I agree that +1s should remain banned.

Aren’t Crazy cyphers against the rules already? Just say you can’t do that. Mods have access to the quick topics so can put a stop to it or modkil/etc.

And if people are talking outside of game, then they’re cheating anyway and banning +1 won’t really do anything regardless.

I don't think that would fall under the rules against encryption or against the rules of play in general. It seems pretty common for the mafia team to find ways to signal each other during the day chat through codes and references, and there's never been any hint that's illegal. For example, if mafia have a night action that lets them scan for PRs, agreeing that "If my first post starts with A then the target was the doctor, B is tracker, C is nothing," etc. The point of the anti-encryption rule isn't to ban secret messages, it's to prevent people from encoding messages in a way that they can't be broken once the message is found.

So the problem with +1s in that example is that they're not permanent and the mafia could effectively erase their secret message in a way that prevents town from ever knowing about it, and that does seem like a problem (if only because it turns +1s into a tool for mafia that has no equivalent/compensating use for town).

I am less worried about outright cheating when it comes to +1'ing. If two players are going to agree to actively cheat, it doesn't matter if they do it by +1'ing or by emailing or by meeting in a dark parking garage in trenchcoats.

I am more worried about dead players trying to help their team by going back and +1'ing posts that point to scum, because they don't want to outright cheat but can't let go and maybe think it won't be noticed. Or even players who innocently go back to reread the game and +1 posts where players had good insights that turned out to be true.

It's already in the rules, but there's enough of a discussion on it (with the new forum) and enough questions that it's probably worth making it clear that the debate is closed.

Oh yes, for sure - but I don't see any need to re-write the rules.

I won't be rewriting all of those rules, just putting them in standardized language that all GMs should be able to use in their games. It also can serve as copy-and-paste material for GMs as well. I don't see things changing very much at all, and we can continue discussing future changes and amendments to the current rule set regardless.